H2O: Just Add Maximum Ride
by JesusFreakft
Summary: Max and the flock thought they were the only surviving mutants from the School. Cleo, Emma, and Rikki thought they were magical mermaids. How do these two groups of friends fit together? (Incomplete.)
1. An Invasion

**H2O: Just Add Maximum Ride**

I looked at the large building in front of us, the last lights in office windows diminishing as the cleaning crew finished up. Soon several people could be seen making their way from the building, their talking and laughter breaking the silence of night.

Their _normal_ conversation, from their _normal_ lives. I sighed. Sometimes I wished _I_ were just a normal person, with nothing more to worry about than friends, parties, and Fang.

I stole a glance at Fang, his dark form blending into the night as it always seemed to do, wherever he was.

I felt eyes on me and saw Angel lying on one side of Fang, smiling knowingly.

I felt my face flush. What was worse than your own personal mind reader listening to everything you thought?

_A mind reader who never would tell Fang everything you thought about him,_ Angel's voice said in my head.

Okay, so now I should be thrilled to have a mind reader in my head?

Angel smiled her angelic smile at me.

I turned back to the business at hand, looking at the parking lot as the last car left, cruising past the bright Itex sign by the exit.

It had taken long enough to find out the location of another Itex branch that had any useful information, but Voices in your head were helpful on occasion.

A very rare occasion.

But still, here we were. I didn't know why my Voice felt the need to help out. It certainly wasn't out of any sympathy toward me.

But whatever the reason, I had the location and the information to get inside.

I looked at my flock. They were flat on their stomachs, wearing dark clothes, and generally ready for a night invasion. They were ready to go, and if evil scientists followed semi-normal schedules, there was no one in the building.

Of course, with my past, the building would probably be crawling with some sort of evil menace bent on destroying me and my flock.

_Come _on_, Max,_ Angel's voice said, _Stop being so negative!_

Okay, so I wasn't helping flock morale any with my musings.

I took a deep breath. It was time to go.

I nodded to Fang and we stood up, the rest of the flock following our lead.

I looked down again at the Itex laboratory in front of us as I tipped forward and fell off the edge of the building roof, on which we had been waiting for the last three hours.

I plummeted toward the ground at a dizzying rate, covering an easy thirty feet before I unfurled my wings and jerked upward slightly from the air resistance.

I shook my hair out behind me and grinned. Whether we were about to invade a laboratory by one of the leading corporations in the world on a potentially life-threatening mission or not, nothing compared to the joy of flying.

Fang soared up beside me and his barely visible smile made it clear that he enjoyed flying as much as I did.

_Or he just likes the way you look when you're flying._

_Angel,_ I thought, _Be quiet, you're wrecking the moment._

_You mean you don't want him to like the way you fly?_ Angel asked.

I felt my facial coloring redden a shade, _This is no time to be talking like this, Angel._

As we neared the Itex building I soared upward to regain the height I had lost while gliding before making a soft running landing on the roof.

Fang landed beside me while the rest of the flock stayed in the air. We quickly covered the roof and, seeing no security breaches, motioned the rest of the flock down.

We stood in silence as Iggy pulled out his tools and went to work on the lock on the door to the stairs leading into the building. The only sound was metal on metal as Iggy's fingers worked the lock.

Finally the lock gave a click and the door slid open. I slipped through it and ran silently down the stairs. From the occasional scuffing or squeaking of a shoe on polished floor I knew my flock was right behind me.

After counting six floors I stopped and Iggy ran into my back.

"Don't be so quiet," he muttered.

Fang shushed him, but I could tell he was smirking.

I ignored them and turned into a hallway with white painted walls and the smells of everything anesthetic and medical cleanliness hit us from every direction. I nearly gagged but tried to hold it in, despite the rather pleasant thought of what the whitecoats' faces would look like if they came to work in the morning and saw barf all over their precious equipment.

I shook my head to clear it and looked for the door to the technical room.

TECHNICAL ROOM

Read a sign on a door. That could be what I was looking for. It was nice of these whitecoats to label the doors as if they knew we'd be coming in here.

I pointed to the sign on the door and walked to it, looking inside through a very helpfully positioned window. Nobody in sight.

I motioned Nudge forward and pointed to the door handle. She nodded in comprehension and put her hand to it lightly. She gave a little jerk but made no noise. After a moment she stumbled backward and moved her mouth silently:

"All clear."

I noticed she was sweating with the thoughts of these evil scientists and was about to comfort her, but Angel moved forward to comfort her and I reluctantly turned back to the task at hand, knowing that Angel could make Nudge feel better. I grasped the door handle and delicately turned it.

It was unlocked.

I slowly opened the door and slipped inside, the rest of my flock following me. I turned to Nudge, hesitant to ask for her help again, but she looked okay and Angel walked with her over to a computer as she ran her fingers over the keyboard, eyes closed. She typed seemingly random keys for a moment before the computer screen came to life and displayed a welcome message with a list of options.

Nudge clicked on a folder icon and a list of files appeared. She looked at me inquisitively; I was the one who knew what we were looking for.

I scanned the list of files until I saw one labeled "List of Successful Experiments". I pointed to it and Nudge clicked on it. I looked and, satisfied, pointed to the print button.

As the pages came off the printer, I picked them up and quickly them read over. It was a list of all the experiments that had made it past infancy from the School. Most of them were dead.

Most of the way down the list I stopped. My Voice was right!

"What is it Max?" Fang was suddenly at my side.

My mouth moved but nothing came out.

"Max?" Fang repeated, alarm raising his voice slightly.

All this time, we were alone.

"Max, what's wrong?" Gazzy asked.

All this time, we were the only ones alive.

"Max, are you okay?" Iggy asked, his brow furrowed as he tried to get the mood without visual.

But now...now...

Angel looked up at me, wide-eyed, "There are more," she whispered.

"More _what_?" Nudge asked.

"There are more of us," I said, finally finding my voice, "There are more mutants."


	2. A Flight

Rikki skipped down the beach to a ledge where the sand-covered rock gave way abruptly to water twenty meters below.

She hesitated a moment, looking around to make sure no one was in sight, then dove off the cliff in an arch and slid smoothly into the clear water. She lie motionless as she sank slowly toward the bottom, looking at the beautiful sea flora and fauna that adorned the ocean walls and floor.

About ten seconds later some blue magical sparks swirled around her and a moment later she looked down to see the familiar mermaid tail covering her from the waist down.

She laughed, as much as she could laugh underwater, and twisted, swimming happily in the ocean currents, making sure to not get too close to any populated shore. She didn't want to be seen like this. If anyone knew what see what she was and what she could do she would lose all her freedom. All her friends (at least as she knew them now).

Rikki turned and stretched out her hand, creating a miniature geyser at the surface of the water in a moment of pure pleasure.

About thirty minutes later she swam back to the same rock ledge, beaching herself on a shore below the cliff, out of sight. She lay down at rested from her excursion, letting the sun dry her.

After a while she sat up. Her legs were back; her tail gone. Rikki walked down the beach back toward her home. She had school today, but soon school would be out. To most kids summer break lasted only a little while. A few months of juggling sports camps and vacations. But Rikki didn't have to worry about that. She knew she wouldn't be going to any summer camps this year. All summer camps, being summer camps, involved water.

For her, summer break lasted the longest time in the world. She would have several months for nothing but swimming in the clear, wide ocean.

Rikki grinned as her bare feet sank slightly in the gradually warming sand. In two days school was out forever.

* * *

The air rushed at me at a tremendous speed. I saw Iggy and Gazzy peering in the plane's windows as the clouds flew by (no pun intended). I adjusted by wings to try and steer in a vaguely forward direction as the rope tied around my waist, the other end of which was tied to the wing of the plane, yanked me along. It wasn't the most pleasant thing in the world, but it got the job done.

Wait, you ask, Did Max just forget last night's invasion? Has Max finally lost her marbles? Why is she tied to a plane?

Let me give a quick recap.

After last night's invasion of the Itex building we got back to our heavily forested temporary residence in the middle of nowhere and discussed our findings. Or rather, my findings (I had had help, but apparently since I was the only one who seemed to know what was going on I got the credit).

"What's going on Max?"

"What do you mean there are more of us?"

"Are there more kids with wings?"

"When do we eat, anyway?"

Okay, so that last one was Gazzy. Anyway, I shushed them and tried to explain.

"This list lists all the successful mutants that the School has produced," I explained, "But," I continued, "Most of them are dead now."

My flock watched with rapt attention. Except Fang, who only looked vaguely interested and mostly bored, but I knew he was listening.

"But," I said again, "There _is_ one set of experiments that survived," I pointed to the paper we'd printed off, "There are three of them, and their being kept in Australia right now."

And from there everyone started talking at once excitedly and saying how cool it would be to have other experiments to talk to and they're in Australia, that's where the kangaroos live, and when can we go see them anyway?

I had explained that Australia is on the other side of the world, and that even with our enhanced flying capabilities it would take too long and be too hard to fly over an entire ocean.

That only brought on more talk about how we could get there, however, which brought up Gazzy's bright idea to tie ourselves to the wing of a 747 and get a free ride across.

I was hesitant, but Iggy presented me with confusing statistics until I finally gave in. Fang found a bunch of rope in a dumpster downtown (he assured me it would hold us) and so, after a very nervous trip inside the local airport, we snuck onto the yard as a certain 747 taxied toward the runway for a trip to Australia.

Fang and Iggy secured the ropes and I double-checked them for peace of mind. It didn't help. The plane taxied forward, going faster and faster until it was airborne. We were yanked around quite a bit but after a while we figured out how to use our wings as rudders so the ride was smoother (and we didn't get sucked into the engine).

And that is how I ended up tied to a plane. I looked back at Iggy and Gazzy, who were still having a great time making terrified expressions to anyone inside the plane who was awake enough to freak out that there were two kids stuck on the outside of the freakin' plane!

I thought about barfing, but didn't feel like watching it drop several thousand feet before hitting the surface of the ocean far below us. I groaned, the noise lost in the air rushing past us.

We're going to see more of us, I reminded myself, Keep your eye on the prize.

If I didn't, I probably wouldn't survive. Why, oh why, oh why had I let myself get talked into this??


	3. A Meal

Cleo leaned back in her chair.

"So, Lewis," she spoke loudly to be heard above the busy noise of the school cafeteria, "What are you doing this summer?"

"Oh, I don't know," Lewis said, "I was thinking of going to a science camp just outside town for a couple weeks," he sipped his drink.

"Anything else?" Cleo asked.

"Well, I was thinking of practicing my chess skills to try out for the team next semester," Lewis continued.

"And...?" Cleo prodded.

"And I suppose maybe I'll try out for the math club too," Lewis shrugged.

"Oh," Cleo said more quietly, chewing slowly as she stared at her food.

Lewis took another sip of his drink and saw Rikki glaring at him. When she caught his eye she batted her eyes enticingly and jerked her head at Cleo. Lewis suddenly caught her meaning.

"Uh...well...I mean," he started to Cleo, choking on his drink, "I suppose that...um...you know...maybe it'd be a good idea to just be at home some of the time, too....I mean...right?" out of the corner of his eye he saw Emma roll her eyes, "Be at home...you know...and hang out with friends or whatever..."

Cleo smiled at him, knowing exactly what he meant, "That'd be great, Lewis. You're fantastic, you know that?"

Lewis chuckled, his face reddening, "Yes, well, I...uh..."

"Yes?" Cleo asked.

"Um...I'd better get another can of soda from the machine," Lewis said, "Wouldn't want to get low on...uh...nutrition," he hurried away toward the vending machines.

Cleo looked after him and sighed.

"Cleo," Emma said, "He does like you, he just doesn't show it in the same way."

Cleo nodded thoughtfully and sighed again.

Rikki raised her eyebrows, "Nutrition? In soda?"

Emma shrugged, "Who knows what Lewis knows?"

* * *

Many unbearable hours, three barfs, two half-conscious naps, and five Iggy and Gazzy induced hysteria victims later, we arrived in Australia.

Still four thousand feet in the air we untied our rope restraints and flew down to the ground ourselves, not wanting to find out what the airport personnel would do finding mutant bird kids tied to their plane. Okay, so Iggy and Gazzy wanted to find out, but everyone else overruled them (emphatically).

We rested in the nearby park around a picnic table. (You think it's easy to fly tied to a plane? You try it sometime.)

"Where do we going now, Max?" Nudge asked excitedly.

"Well," I started, then suddenly realized I had no idea.

I looked at Fang for help.

He looked coolly back at me, providing no help whatsoever. I started to wonder what I saw in him, then decided to squelch the romantic thoughts before six-year-old-cupid read anything from me.

"Max?" Nudge pressed.

I threw together a plan on the spot using my brilliant logic, "Let's go eat first," I suggested, "We'll be able to hunt better after we eat."

"Yes!" Gazzy pumped his fist as Iggy wondered what delicacies would be offered in Australian restaurants.

I did my best to ignore him.

"And they have kangaroo here, right?" he was saying, "So, like, what parts of a kangaroo do you cook? I mean, the biggest part would probably be..."

I looked frantically for an invading mass of mutations to stop his fascinating wonderment but, finding none, took to the air in search of a source of food.

My flock noticed my departure and followed, and about a half-hour later we found a good place on the beach; a cafe.

As we sat down on the chairs lining the counter, the girl taking orders came toward us, "Can I help you?"

"Yes," Gazzy said immediately, "I'll take two burgers, three fries, two chocolate shakes, and..."

"That's enough, Gazzy," Iggy scolded, and I almost felt proud of him until he said, "Let's not overindulge on the first course."

Gazzy nodded in agreement.

"I'll have the same as him," Iggy added to the girl behind the counter.

I smirked at the slightly dazed look on her face as she pulled out a notebook to take the rest of our orders. Hadn't she ever seen a mutant bird kid before? No, I chided myself, Of course not. I hear that they're an endangered species nowadays.


	4. A Bombing

Ten minutes later we had our food and were eating it outside on the beach talking happily. That is, my flock was talking happily. I was trying to think of our next move toward finding these fellow mutants.

And what would we do once we found them? Would they be nice or tend toward hostility? Perhaps they were sitting in some dog crates like we had been, just waiting to snap at anyone who came near even though all hope had been lost some time ago.

Maybe they would be too scared to come with us; what then? Would we have to drag them out of there kicking and screaming? Would we even be able to? What kinds of powers did they have anyway? The documents I had seen had specified human-fish hybrids, but what would that entail (no pun intended)? Would they have teeth like a shark for biting and ripping flesh? Maybe they couldn't even leave the water! How would we communicate with them then?

"Hey! What're you lookin' at?!"

I blinked and saw a girl a little older than me coming toward me from down the beach. I could see the confidence in her stride and my muscles tensed, wondering if she was from Itex.

"What'd you say?" I asked her, standing up and subtly shifting to a fighting stance.

"What's your problem?!" she snarled, "You think I like to be stared at while I take walks down the beach?"

My fight awareness turned to embarrassment as I realized I must have been staring at her unintentionally, lost in thought.

Still, she didn't exactly have the right to come up here and be such a jerk about it.

I flexed my fingers, warming up for the possible fight I knew could ensue if I wasn't careful.

* * *

Rikki stared at Zane.

"You're kidding!" she blurted out, shocked.

Zane shook his head sadly, "My dad got a job with a company in Italy. Things haven't been going so well with his job here and he decided to move there for a while to try things out," his face betrayed his pain at leaving Australia.

His home.

His school.

His friends.

Rikki.

"But...but..." Rikki sputtered, at a loss for words. Her breath came in short, quick gasps, "What about his investments here? Will we never see each other again? Will you ever come back?"

Zane held up his hand, smiling sadly as he gazed at Rikki, "His investments are still here, and he'll probably have to come back to check on them every once in a while," he said, "I'm sure I can come back with him when he does."

Rikki felt anger well up inside of her, "Every once in a while?!" she repeated, her voice raising. Zane glanced up and down the beach, but the only person out here was Lewis at his fishing spot, and he was out of hearing range, "After all we've been through?!" Rikki continued, "After you've lived your entire life here?! After you found out what I can become?! After all our friendship has been through?! And now you're just going to pack up and move away, just like that?!" Rikki was shouting now.

"Rikki..." Zane started.

"No!" she interrupted, "How can you do this to me?! I know you don't want to leave!"

"No, I don't," he agreed, "But—"

"Then don't!" she interrupted him again, overcome with anger and grief, "You're a responsible adult! Nearly eighteen! Don't leave, Zane! They can't make you leave!"

"Rikki," he started again, "It's not that simple. I..."

"Why isn't it that simple?!" she yelled, turning from him and walking a few angry steps away. Then she stopped and turned back, "Of course, I wouldn't know about your class of snobby, rich businessmen now, would I? All I know is that one of the only friends I've managed to make in my short life is being ripped from my grasp! And he's not willing to change it!!" she turned back and ran away from him down the beach, a few tears starting to form lines down her face.

"Rikki!" he called after her, "That's not true! I don't want to leave! Really!" he stopped, his eyes revealing the sadness and regret he felt inside, "I really don't want to leave," he repeated to himself. But now he wasn't so sure, "Do I?"

Rikki ran down the beach, her anger transforming itself into energy as she ran first one mile, then two, without stopping. As she approached a more populated area of the beach she began to come across sunbathers basking in the sun, swimmers practicing their strokes, a few kids building sandcastles, and the occasional surfer out for an early morning ride.

She stopped to catch her breath, her anger gone leaving enormous grief in its place. She moaned softly. After all this time. After all she and Zane and gone through in their friendship. It had come to this?

A sob escaped her throat and she stopped the next one before it could escape. She wasn't a crybaby, after all. She could handle this in a mature, adult fashion.

But how was that? She wondered.

Emma would know, she decided, continuing down the beach to the point where the Juicenet cafe sat overlooking the popular sandy point where many tourists and locals liked to hang out.

A little ways down the beach a boy and a girl sat on the sand as some smaller kids played in and around the water, presumably all of them siblings. The girl was gazing at her.

Rikki tried to smile back, but in her current mood it came out more as a smirk.

The girl didn't show any recognition. She simply stared back, blond hair moving slightly in the breeze.

For an agonizing moment Rikki wondered if there was something wrong with her. Maybe someone had switched her shampoo with hair dye again! She prayed this wasn't the case. But as she glanced around at everyone on the beach they were all caught up in their own activities. She might as well be invisible.

Relieved, Rikki looked back at the girl down the beach. She was about Rikki's age. A little younger. And she was still staring.

What was her problem? Rikki wondered, a stray bit of anger suddenly making her set her jaw and narrow her eyes at the girl, who still ignored her and continued to stare. Had she seen her and Zane fighting and had was trying to embarrass her?? Or was she just one of those stupid tourists who thought everything would be perfect on this gorgeous beach paradise?

As she grew closer, Rikki tried to ignore her unrelenting gaze but could not.

"What're you lookin' at?!" she finally snapped at her.

The girl blinked, finally showing some sign that she was indeed alive, "What'd you say?" she asked innocently as if nothing had happened, standing up as she did so. The girl spoke with an accent, probably American. Rikki had been right; she was just a stupid tourist.

"What's your problem?!" Rikki snarled at her, "You think I like to be stared at while I take walks down the beach?"

"Oh," she said, "Was I staring at you? Sorry, I was just thinking."

Rikki noticed her flexing her fingers. She was probably itching for a fight and decided to pick on Rikki. Well Rikki would enjoy loosing her anger on someone.

She sneered at the girl, who was almost as tall as she was, daring her to make the first move. She didn't want to be the one to start this fight. Afterwards she could claim it was just self-defense.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!" a maniacal cry from above startled Rikki and the other girl, both of them looking upward.

* * *

Gazzy rose into the air, his wings working against the arbitrary winds from the ocean.

"You got the water balloons?" Iggy asked from ten feet away.

"Roger," Gazzy grinned, "Operation Dive Bomb Max is a go."

"Roger that, Captain Terror," Iggy intoned, miming a two-way radio, "Proceed."

"Commencing diving sequence," Gazzy shouted with glee, dropping from the air with Iggy on his heels.

They were at least three hundred feet up, Iggy had estimated. Gazzy's enhanced vision immediately found Max among the scattered people on the beach and adjusted his wings accordingly. He pulled out two water balloons, one in each hand, from inside his shirt.

He saw a girl walking up to Max and Max stood as they started talking.

"There's someone talking to Max!" Gazzy yelled back to Iggy.

"Does it look like danger, Captain Terror?" Iggy shouted back.

"Negative!" Gazzy said as Max and the girl beside her appeared to continue talking without blows.

"Take them both out!!" Iggy ordered.

"Roger that, Captain Iggy!" Gazzy grinned, "Approximately one hundred fifty feet left!" he reported for Iggy's sake.

"First round," Iggy said, "FIRE!!"

Gazzy immediately let his balloons drop toward Max and the other girl as he saw Iggy's balloons pass him on the same course.

"Reload!! Reload!!" Iggy shouted.

Gazzy grabbed two more water balloons from his shirt.

"Second round," Iggy shouted, "FIRE!!"

Four more balloons dropped toward the two girls standing on the beach.

"Reload!!" Iggy ordered again, "Prepare for firing sequence at point blank range!"

"Copy that!" Gazzy agreed, preparing two more balloons, "Approaching fifty feet, Captain Iggy!"

From the sheer joy of it all Gazzy couldn't help letting loose a scream, "AAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!"


	5. A Discovery

Emma Gilbert hummed softly to herself as she leaned on the counter in the Juicenet cafe. The lunch hour was gone and, aside from the occasional straggler or tourist, the place would remain empty until the dinner crowd started to arrive.

It was peaceful this time of the day. Emma liked it. She could restock items, clean up, do some homework, or just sit there and think. She had already checked the condiments and refilled them, and she didn't feel like cramming for finals right now; her head was still spinning from the last night's information overload.

Emma sighed contentedly. The ocean's roar and the screams of happy beach dwellers were muffled by the walls of the cafe so that there was relative silence inside.

Emma wondered what she would do when school let out in two days. She would be able to devote more time to Cleo and Rikki with no homework to worry about. Cleo would enjoy a shopping trip, she mused. Rikki would probably rather go swimming most of the time, but they obviously couldn't do that all the time; at least Emma couldn't. She had her job at the Juicenet cafe, and her family. Maybe she would even get invited to some good parties during the summer. She couldn't touch water, just like Cleo and Rikki, and that was always a setback, but she could manage.

And although it set her away from (most people's) reality, Emma enjoyed her powers. She could swim faster than she ever could before, and there were a handful of other powers too; holding her breath for a quarter of an hour and freezing water, to name a couple.

Emma's mind abruptly changed gears as she wondered if the concept of magic had originated with the mermaids. Magic was how they had obtained their powers, after all. It was spread across books, television shows, movies, and every other type of media. Even storytellers from thousands of years ago at the earth's beginning had told tales of magical creatures and the magical powers used to slay them. Had the mermaids been the ones to find and publicize magic? Every story, every movie, did it all trace back to the mermaids?

Emma rested her head on her hands, physically relaxed. Her thinking was giving her a headache, though, and it only went round and round anyway. The concept of magic had evolved so far from when it had begun she doubted even Lewis would have the faintest clue about her ideas.

Emma blinked and tried to clear her head, staring out the windows of the cafe onto the beach. Now that she thought about it, she could hear a slightly increased murmur from the folk outside than before. Perhaps more people had arrived; they usually did in the afternoon hours. She could hear a scream a little way away. It was high-pitched, like a girl's. If she tried, Emma could imagine the scream coming from Cleo. It was more fierce than Cleo's girly-girl scream, though, she realized. It was more like Rikki's.

Probably just some girl who dropped her ice cream cone on herself and was freezing, Emma thought with a smirk.

The sound seemed to be coming closer, Emma thought. She hoped that whoever it was didn't decide to take shelter in the Juicenet cafe. She didn't much feel like cleaning up after an ice cream spill all over the floor, or whatever the problem might be.

The more she thought about it, Emma thought the scream sounded a lot like Rikki's...

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!"

Rikki came flying through the door like a rabid kangaroo was after her.

"Rikki," Emma exclaimed, "What's wrong?!"

"Stupid tourists!" Rikki cried frantically, "They hit me with a _waterballoon_!!"

Emma understood immediately, "Are they following you?" she asked, then, without waiting for an answer, "Quick, into the back!" She shoved Rikki into the back room behind the immediate eating area, out of sight.

No sooner had she done so than a girl and boy, about as old as she was, burst through the door.

"Excuse us," the boy said calmly, as if they hadn't nearly broken the door down in pursuit of Rikki, "But did a girl just come through here?"

Emma hadn't had time to think of an excuse and she wasn't as good as Rikki was at lying anyway, "Buh...uh..." she stuttered.

The boy waited patiently for her to collect her thoughts into coherent sentences, but the girl obviously wasn't as patient as he was.

"Well??" she asked impatiently, "Either she was here or she wasn't. Which is it?"

"Um..." Emma said, trying to pull her thoughts together, "What...what did she look like?"

"From the looks of things," the girl said, motioning around the empty cafe, "There aren't very many people here at the moment. Now did a girl just run through here or not? _Any_ girl?"

Emma blinked, her mouth open. How could she stall more time for Rikki?

"It requires a one-syllable answer," the girl said, anger rising, "Either it's a 'yes' or it's a 'no'. Or perhaps your brain can't comprehend the use of such simple..."

She broke off as the boy beside her pointed to the door behind Emma, "Out the back way," he said with his more quiet, calm voice.

"Uh...actually," Emma said, finding her voice as the two moved toward the door into the back room, "You aren't allowed back there; company policy."

"Oh yeah?" the girl sneered, her face not unlike Rikki's at that moment, Emma realized, "Says who?"

"This place is a company?" the boy asked himself, "Looked to me more like a..."

"My boss," Emma interrupted, "He doesn't want customers in the back. But..." her voice trailed off as her brow furrowed, "Wait...didn't I take your order earlier?"

"Yes," the girl said, anger growing now with amazing personality similarities to Rikki, "And we would very much like to find that girl that _we_ saw come in here, even if _you_ didn't."

"I'm sorry," Emma said apologetically, "But I can't..."

The girl moved faster than Emma could see and a moment later she was lying on the floor in front of the counter, dazed.

"That's alright," the girl said, "I can."

With a sinking heart Emma heard the door to the back open as she struggled to stand up again. She put a hand on her head and the other on the counter to steady herself. She hoped Rikki had managed to dry herself off by now, but a cry of surprise in the back room told her the answer. She stumbled past the counter and through the door, still clutching her head with one hand.

Inside the girl and boy stood still in surprise. The girl's eyes were wide as she looked at Rikki. Rikki's top half was human, but her bottom half was fish. With a sinking heart Emma looked at the two groups; Rikki glaring angrily, slightly scared at being discovered, and the girl and her apparent boyfriend looking on in surprise. Actually the boy looked like he'd seen this kind of stuff every day, but maybe that was just his personality.

"That was easier than we thought," the boy muttered.

What was he talking about??

"So," the girl said, her surprise seeming to subside, "Here you are."

Did they know about Rikki?? Emma wondered in a mixture of puzzlement and anxiety, Were they mermaids too??


	6. A Stakeout

Fang and I looked down at the blond girl (the one on the floor, not to be confused with the one standing beside us) and I marveled at the ease with which we had found our fellow mutants. The stuff from Itex had said that they were human-fish hybrids. Apparently that was fancy-smancy scientist talk for "mermaids".

"So," I said, my adrenaline rush from the last minute's violence subsiding gradually, "Here you are."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Miss Mermaid snapped angrily.

"We were looking for you," Fang said, cutting of the returning insult about to leave my lips.

"Uh...yes," I said, "We found some papers from the School and—"

"You hacked into the school computers?" the blond beside us asked in shock.

Apparently being kidnapped to the mountains and trained by a half-mad whitecoat didn't happen to everyone.

"Well, actually it was an Itex building," I conceded.

Our former waitress blinked, "So...you hacked the school computers from an Itex building?" she asked uncertainly.

"Wait," I said, "Are you in on this...situation?" I gestured toward Miss Mermaid.

"Yes," Miss Mermaid answered snidely, "She knows about my _situation_."

"Okay," I said, "See, what happened was, we hacked the _Itex_ computers from the _Itex_ building."

"Oh, Itex," Miss Mermaid said, "I've heard of them."

Slooooww progress. I continued, "Yeah, right. Anyway, we found files that showed stuff about these human-fish hybrids. They—"

"Hybrid?" Blond Waitress interrupted again, "Isn't that a kind of car?"

"No!" I said frustratedly, "I mean, yes! I mean, sort of!" I looked around for a brick wall to violently and repeatedly smash my head against.

"It's a scientific term," Fang explained quietly, keeping his patience in that miraculous way he has, "Like how hybrid cars run on part fuel, part something else. Hybrids, biologically, are part one thing and part another."

"Like half tourist and half stupid?" Miss Mermaid sneered, but her eye twitched so I knew that she wasn't as certain as she sounded.

"No," I cut in, "Not a mental or personality change. A _physical_ change."

Realization flickered in her eye as she looked startled and, momentarily, she forgot her fear about us seeing her...mermaidness.

Blond Waitress looked from me to her friend, back to me and then to her friend again, "Whaaaatt?" she asked anxiously.

"_You_ are those human-fish hybrids," Fang stated concisely.

"And you _knew_ about our situation?" Cleo asked Lewis in a shrill voice.

"Which _one_?" Lewis asked helplessly, then "Ow!" when Rikki slapped his arm.

"You _know_ which situation!" Emma said, "_The_ situation."

"Oh," Lewis said, "_The_ situation. As in, the situation that was worse than all your _other_ situations."

"The _water_ situation," Cleo clarified.

"The _water_ situation," Lewis nodded, "You mean the _mermaid_ situation."

"Ssssshhh!!" the three girls shushed Lewis frantically. They looked anxiously around the Juicenet cafe, but neither the two groups of teenagers gathering around a couple tables nor the older couple eating slowly and deliberately in a booth in the corner seemed to hear them.

"But there's something about our _situation_ that you didn't tell us, isn't there?" Rikki asked with barely concealed contempt.

"There is?" Lewis sipped his soda.

"Yes!!" Cleo said so vehemently that the older couple stopped chewing momentarily to glance her way, "Yes," she said more quietly, "There is."

"Well, what is it?" Lewis asked innocently.

"'What is it?'" Rikki mimicked mockingly, "You mean you didn't _know_ that we were human-fish hybrids?!"

"Scientifically speaking," Lewis said, "A human-fish hybrid and an alleged mermaid are basically the same thing."

"They are?" Cleo asked thoughtfully, "Say, I'd never thought about that before..."

"But you told us that we got our mermaid powers because of magic," Rikki said.

"Wait..." Emma said, "Did you just call us 'alleged'?"

"_I_ told _you_ that?" Lewis asked in reference to Rikki's statement, "I was quite sure that _you_ told _me_ it was because of magic. I, after all, happened to be absent at that _situation_."

"That's true," Cleo said, "Lewis wasn't there. He only had our descriptions to go off of."

One of the groups of teens collected at the counter to pay their bill and Emma walked over to help them.

"Why all these questions, anyway?" Lewis asked, setting his drink aside, "Why are you suddenly convinced that I've been keeping the results of my research from you?"

Rikki leaned in closer and Cleo and Lewis took the hint and did the same, "Some people came in here earlier," Rikki whispered, "They saw me as a mermaid. They told us things..."

* * *

"What're they doing now?" Iggy asked.

We were situated a little ways up the beach farther than before so that we wouldn't be immediately recognized and were keeping an eye on our mermaid friends. We'd explained what the School was and how the papers we'd found had connected them to it. We also explained how the School had people everywhere. They had to keep our presence to themselves.

A half-hour later they had met a brunette girl and a nerdy-looking guy in the same place where we'd met them.

Before we'd left, we'd gotten their names: Former Waitress was Emma and Miss Mermaid's name was Rikki. I knew the names were real because as soon as Form—that is, Emma—said them Rikki glared at her like "You moron! You actually gave our _real_ names to these freaks?"

I know. I've gotten that look before from Fang.

I looked over at Fang, who was calmly (was he ever _not_ calm?) watching the girls and their boy friend converse heatedly.

"Still talking," I told Iggy, "And they don't look very happy, either."

"Emma and Rikki and...their friend, mostly," Fang specified.

"Their friend's name is Cleo," I interrupted.

Fang raised an eyebrow in a "How do you know?" look.

I smirked, "Hellooo, lip-reading?"

After all we'd been through, he still underestimated me.

"Emma, Rikki, and Cleo are having the most...colorful...conversation," Fang went on as if I hadn't just proved him wrong, "But their boy friend..."

"Lewis," I interrupted smugly.

"...Lewis is looking more calm and defensive. Less animated," Fang finished.

Iggy nodded as if it were only natural for the girls' conversation to be more animated and colorful than the boy's.

I almost started one of my famous rants about how girls were _not_ standardly more emotional than boys, and don't they ever forget it!! But I realized how ironic that would sound so I just shut up and looked back at the mutants in question.

A moment later I happened to glance at Fang and saw he was smirking at me, probably knowing exactly the battle going on inside of me.

"I'm going to go check on the others," I mumbled angrily before standing up and jogging toward the water where Nudge, the Gasman, and Angel were still playing in the water.

How did Fang always seem to know what I was thinking? I wondered, And yet I never knew what he was thinking. Was he developing a new power without letting any of us know?

Nah, he was just being Fang.


	7. A Kidnapping

"That'll be 12.37."

The teen's face maintained the same cute smile he'd had the moment previous.

Emma smiled awkwardly as his piercing eyes seemed to stare right through her. She didn't normally get this way about boys. She looked around at his friends. They all looked different, yet somehow the same. It was the eyes, she realized. They all had the same eyes. Must be brothers or something.

The guy didn't say anything, so she repeated her previous statement, "The cost for your drinks is 12.37."

Still he remained silent, unblinking eyes staring at her. _Into_ her. Emma moved a little side to side in front of him.

His eyes followed her.

She glanced at his friends/brothers and was startled to see the identical expression on each one. She looked back to the first guy, wondering what the company procedure for this interesting situation was.

"I'm not here to pay."

His voice, unexpectedly gruff, startled Emma and she jumped.

"Well," she said, trying to regain her composure, "Maybe one of your friends would..."

"_We're_ not here to pay," he interrupted.

"You bought drinks," Emma said, "You have to pay for them..."

"We're not here to pay," he repeated calmly.

"Then," Emma asked uncertainly, glancing at Cleo and her other friends uneasily, "Why are you here?"

When she looked back at the teen she gasped. His face was contorting grotesquely and his voice came out very raspy as the bottom of it bulged outward. His friends' faces were messed up similarly.

"We're here," the first one rasped, "For you!"

* * *

Cleo heard Emma gasp and looked over. She gasped herself when she saw the guys' faces contorting like zombies in the television shows that Kim liked to watch. But instead of slime and rotting flesh, their skin was becoming hairy everywhere...

They suddenly spread out around the counter, surrounding Emma.

"What is it, Cleo?" Lewis stopped some explanation to ask. He and Rikki followed her gaze.

"Are they attacking Emma?" Rikki asked, her voice rising in anger.

She stood up, as did Lewis, and they strode toward the circle surrounding Emma.

"Now, just a moment!" Rikki placed a firm hand on one of the freak's shoulders, "What do you think you're—"

Without warning the guy turned and punched Rikki hard in the face. She stumbled backward, grimacing painfully as blood started to trickle down her cheek. Lewis started forward and without hesitation the same guy turned at sent a roundhouse kick into his midsection, sending him to the floor, gasping for breath.

Cleo's mouth opened to scream but no sound came out. She knew she couldn't take on Rikki, much less these trained fighters. Looking at their hairy brown arms of various shades and their fierce eyes, she wasn't even sure they were human. Cleo realized she'd have to go for help. She'd be no help if she tried to take them on here. She couldn't even take on one of them!

She pulled her mobile out of her purse and dialed 112, simultaneously rushing toward the door. She tripped on a chair leg, but managed to keep her footing. The teens paid her no attention whatsoever. They were too busy gloating at her three friends, of which all three were now on the floor with various cuts and bruises.

Her mobile had been ringing several times while she made her exit and now someone picked up.

"Emergency services," a lady's voice came into Cleo's ear, "What is your emergency?"

Cleo was breathing hard from excitement, "My, my friends! They're being attacked! You've got to help them! Send a police car! Or something!"

"Hold on," the lady said, "Calm yourself. Now, exactly what is happening?"

Cleo tried to take more controlled breaths, "My friends are being attacked!" she repeated.

"Where?" the lady prompted.

"At the Juicenet Cafe," Cleo gave the exact location of the said cafe.

"Alright," the lady continued, "By whom are they being attacked?"

"Some guys that were eating there," Cleo said, shuddering as she heard raucous laughter from inside the Juicenet Cafe, "Their faces started getting real messed up, though, and this hair came over them all over! Like a hairy dog or something!"

Pause.

"Hello?" Cleo said after a moment of silence.

"I'm sorry," the lady said with obvious distaste, "Is this a prank call?"

"No!" Cleo shouted, close to tears, "My friends are in there and—"

"We do not deal with werewolves," the lady continued, "Please send our deepest regrets to your friends and we hope that they escape from your early halloween party with no casualties."

"But—" the line went dead.

Cleo shut her phone as a crash echoed from inside. She looked in and saw Emma, Rikki, and Lewis as the freaky teens grabbed them and slung them over their shoulders effortlessly, heading toward the door.

Cleo gasped slightly and backed away, ducking to the side of the building. She scrunched up against the wall as far as she could as the door flew open and the guys romped loudly outside, carrying her friends. Cleo almost didn't dare breath for fear they'd come after her also, but they kept walking onto the beach toward the water.

Several scifi-geeks and girly girls ran at the sight amidst yells and screams, but most of the people were normal folk who assumed this was some publicity stunt or a college prank. Something normal.

The teens kept walking across the beach and into the water. Water!

Rikki and Cleo would turn into mermaids! Lewis wouldn't, but he couldn't hold his breath very long!

Cleo waited, shaking, for several moments after they disappeared in the water, waiting for them to come back up.

They didn't.

Her eyes felt close to tears, but her stress wouldn't allow them right now. What would she do? Who could she call?

Zane.

She quickly opened her mobile again and dialed his number. After five rings an automated voice picked up.

"Hey, you've reached Zane's mobile. Sorry, I'm not here right now, so leave your name and number after the tone and I'll get back to you as soon as I feel like it."

Cleo shut the mobile and slumped even more. What would she do now? Should she go after them? She could fight underwater, but not enough to take on those freaks.

Those freaks that had her friends.

"Cleo??"

Cleo looked up slowly, the tears finally breaking free.

* * *

I jogged purposefully across the beach, my temper slowly cooling.

_It is fear that leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering, _said my private psychiatrist.

_Riiiiight. Whatever, Voice._

I looked around for the younger half of the flock and saw them all splashing playfully in the water. As their laughter drifted lazily over to me, I was struck by how little they'd had time to just be who they were. Kids. I'd thought of this before, and now it just brought a sadness back that I hadn't felt in a while. It wasn't fair to them. These innocent kids. Experimented on and kept on the run for their life with no home to go to, no one to turn to...

"MAX!!" someone yelled frantically in my ear as a hand grabbed my shoulder.

Without thinking I spun, grabbed the hand, and used my leverage to throw the person over my head. They landed with a thud and a grunt. I blinked.

"Oh. Sorry, Iggy."

His wings were out. Why were his wings out?

"I told him not to do that," Fang muttered from ten feet above me. He motioned, "Come up here."

My wings came out from my back, glad to stretch, and I rose into the air beside Fang. Iggy joined us a moment later, rubbing his arm and muttering something about paranoia.

"Look, there," Fang pointed to the cafe (apparently the actual name was "Juicenet Cafe" but whatever) just as some strangely familiar teens came strolling confidently out.

They were carrying the fish mutant girls!

The School had never worked this much in the open before. The only people they sent to do their dirty work were Flyboys, and those weren't working out so well as of recently. But these henchmen acted like..._people_. Not like robots. They joked with each other and walked with a human-like gait. Almost like...

_Erasers?!?_

But the Erasers had been gone for over a year! By now they had gotten to the water and were wading in. The fish girls were fighting but they were no match for the brute strength of an Eraser. I was already forming a plan. Once they got to deep enough water they would be hemmed in on that side. We could come from the other three sides and hit them. They would have to free the fish girls in order to fight. Then we could...

My brain stopped mid-plan. They were going _into_ the water! Into deep water! It was too shallow for a submarine or underwater craft of any kind, and there was nothing on top of the water, yet it was too deep for them to walk or swim, especially with the fish girls in tow.

Yet they kept going until they were fully submerged. I waited. A wave flowed onto the beach and receded again.

Nothing.

I wondered how long fish girls could hold their breaths. I could only hope that the Erasers had reason to keep the School mutants alive. If not...well, let's just say a certain School would be facing my wrath in the near future. I had to do something.

Being the brilliant leader that I am, I took immediate responsibility for my troops, "Fang, get the others."

I flew down the beach to the spot where they'd gone under, catching an updraft to get there even faster. It was only fifty meters or so and I was there within a couple seconds. I looked around from the air but, aside from some slightly curious/terrified sunbathers, there was nothing to show that human-wolf hybrids (assuming that they were, in fact, Erasers) had just kidnapped some human-fish hybrids by escaping into the water and disappearing seemingly without a trace.

I was almost tempted to believe that I had imagined the whole thing. I _had_ been known for strange behavior in my short life as a mutant bird girl on the run.

I looked behind me. The rest of the flock was already in the air and practically to me. I half expected Fang to say, "What happened, Max?" but he just said, "Are they gone?"

I nodded, "Without a trace."

Angel, Gazzy, and Nudge were wide-eyed, having been in danger enough times to know it when they saw it. I could see their little limbs jerking slightly with adrenaline, ready for action. Unfortunately for our fish girl friends, it didn't look like they'd be seeing any.

I hesitated, looking back at the water. Fang, Angel and I could breath underwater enough to give chase (although we weren't extremely fast), but Iggy, Gazzy, and Nudge would have to either swim at the surface or fly up top, both of which would severely reduce our fighting force should it come to a fight. Oh, the burdens I bear for the sake of leadership.

"Let's check out the cafe," Fang suggested, calm as usual.

Of course, it helped when you had your own advisor.

_Who's cute._

_If you say so, Angel,_ I said, trying for an I-could-care-less tone of...thought.

"Let's go," I agreed to Fang, leading the way toward cafe.

There were quite a few people gawking and my enhanced hearing caught the sound of a few shutters clicking from digital cameras, but I couldn't worry about that now.

I landed near the door and folded in my wings. I peeked inside through a window to make sure there weren't anymore possible-Erasers waiting inside. Seeing none, I started to turn to the door when I heard a sniffle to the side of the building. My flock was right behind me. I gave the all clear.

"Go ahead," I told Fang, "I'll be there in a minute."

He nodded and opened the door, motioning the others in. He raised his eyebrows slightly in an "You okay?" look.

I nodded, "I'm fine, I'll just be a minute. I want to give the outside of the building a once-over."

He hesitated, then turned and walked inside.

I turned and walked to the side of the building and turned the corner. I could see a figure leaning on the wall, head down, slumping like it had no hope left. From the outline I could tell it was a girl. It almost looked like...

"Cleo??" I asked incredulously. She turned, the light reflecting off her eyes as tears started to poor forth freely.


	8. A Silencing

"We think they've been kidnapped by Itex," I said, pacing the floor of the Juicenet Cafe.

After I'd found Cleo I'd stayed with her while she'd gradually calmed herself down. Nudge had came out to report no danger inside and the three of us had headed in. Cleo had turned the "Open" sign around to say "Closed", so we had the place to ourselves. Cleo had taken the first ten minutes explaining the basics of the fish-girls' lives, especially the mutant fish-girl part.

"Itex?" Cleo's face crinkled as she thought, "Aren't they the ones that make those—"

"Yeah," I interrupted, "They make a lot of things. Of course," I mused, "It might have been the School..."

"There's a difference?" Fang muttered.

Okay, so he had a point.

"What does Itex have to do with my friends?" Cleo asked, still a little shaky, "And those weird boys..."

"Erasers," I said absentmindedly.

"Erasers?" Angel sounded scared, "But Max, I thought they were dead!" her lower lip quivered.

My poor baby. After all she's been through, who wouldn't be terrified of the human-wolf hybrids the School cooked up? I know I would be. Not to say I wasn't a little scared of them now, but it was unbecoming of a leader to admit faults. I was Fearless Max, for crying out loud!

Well, okay, I seem to remember a certain Fang-left-me incident. And then there was the Mom's-been-kidnapped scenario.

"Max?" Gazzy's voice penetrated my thoughts.

Okay, Max, way to let your mind drift! I pulled my mind back to the shore and anchored it. And tied it to a rock. And buried the rock under the sand. And...

"ERASERS!!!"

I jumped and did a 360, seeing no immediate danger. They must be outside. I did a quick Flock check. Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Angel, Gazzy, Cleo, check. Everybody here. Everybody was also looking at me.

"Finally," Nudge said.

"Get lost in your thoughts again, Max?" Iggy asked, "Unfamiliar territory, that ol' brain, ain't it?"

I glared at him.

"Ssoooo...are the Erasers really back, Max?" Nudge asked, "I mean, if they are that'd be just tragic because, like, remember the first time we saw them at the School and they...well, yeah, and then they got Angel and they kept attacking us and attacking us and there were so many of them and we were—"

"I don't know," I interrupted, feeling a little dizzy from the Nudge channel.

"What are Erasers?" Cleo asked.

"Human-wolf hybrids," Fang answered concisely, "Were thought to be extinct."

"Um...right," I agreed, "They were after us a few years ago, but then we thought that they'd all died," I glanced out the window, "Maybe not."

"So why are you sitting here?" Cleo asked, "Can't you go get Lewis and Emma and Rikki and from whoever has them?"

"First of all, it's not 'you' it's 'we'," I said, "If nothing else for protection. They wanted your friends, they probably want you."

Cleo's face looked scared, as if being stalked was a new thing for her.

Oh wait, it was.

"And second of all," I continued, "We don't know exactly where they are."

"You said Itex," Iggy said.

"Or the School," Nudge added.

"That's a _who_, not a _where_," I said.

"At the Itex building or at the School?" Fang suggested.

Okay, that made sense.

"The School's in the good old US of A," Iggy said, "Must be Itex."

"But where's the nearest Itex building?" I pressed, "And what if it's not the nearest one?"

"There's one on Mako Island," Cleo spoke up.

I blinked, "Isn't that where you...?"

"Got our powers," Cleo finished, nodding. Then added, "At least, where we _think_ we got our powers. Where we _remember_ getting them."

"That's gotta be it," Fang said.

I nodded, "How did they get a building _there_??" at Cleo.

She shrugged, "They got a grant from the government," she said, "Allowing them to do research or something over there. At least that's what my dad said."

"How much does your dad know about Itex?" I asked.

"Well, he works for them."

I swear, if I'd been drinking I would've choked (and knowing me, probably died, too) from shock.

"He _works_ for them?"

"Yeah," she said, "But only part of the time. Most of the time he's a fisherman," her eyes widened as facts from the last two minutes clicked into place, "You mean Itex..._kidnapped_ them?!?"

"Maybe," Fang said, "We're not sure of anything yet," he turned to me, "Maybe we should check with him and see if he can help us out."

That was a long sentence for Fang. Not that I minded him being talkative, it's just that when he talked I felt...

_Max, are you okay?_

_Oh, hi, Angel. You know those thoughts you were getting from me? They definitely weren't mine._

I looked over at Angel. She didn't look convinced. I acted innocent (hey, I _was_ innocent).

"I agree, Fang. Would that be alright, Cleo?"

"That'd be fine," she agreed, swallowing something as another wave of grief hit her.

It was hard to remember that some of us mutants weren't bred to defend ourselves to the death with the scars to show for trying every few weeks.

* * *

It took ten minutes for Cleo to walk the familiar streets. She walked alone, although she knew that Max and her friends were flying far above her. A couple times she'd gotten nervous and shaded her eyes against the sun, squinting to make them out several thousand feet above her until the little girl, Angel, had said in her head to stop looking for them, they were there, just keep walking.

She didn't even pay attention most of the time. She just let her feet walk the streets they knew to walk. After an amount of time her mind told her was ten minutes, since that's how long it took to walk from the Juicenet Cafe to her house every other time. She started to walk up the driveway, but stopped halfway up. Even though her memory told her this was her home, it didn't feel like it anymore. After all she'd learned, she didn't feel like she belonged here anymore. Part of her wanted to believe that the stories of mutants and kidnappings were all just that, stories. But she had seen those freaks change the way they looked. She had seen the ease with which they'd hurt her friends. She hadn't thought anyone could beat Rikki so easily, at least as scrawny as the boys had looked before they'd changed. And she'd seen the wings on Max and Fang and them, right?

That question was answered as six kids and a dog fell gracefully onto the concrete behind her. They pulled in their wings and slipped them behind them, and for a moment Cleo wondered why.

Oh, right, other people hadn't seen mermaids or kids with wings before. What was she thinking?

"Well?" Max said.

"Well, what?" Cleo asked.

"Are you going to let us see your dad?"

"Oh, right," Cleo started up the driveway and up the path to the front door. She almost knocked before remembering the key in her pocket. She took it out and let them in, closing the door behind them as they filed into the front hall.

"I'll see if my dad's here," she told them, motioning them toward the seats in the living room and walking farther down the hall toward her dad's study. She wasn't exactly sure what she'd say to him. She'd figure that out when she got there.

* * *

We sat down on the couch and various other seats. Iggy and Gazzy started discussing Eraser effective explosives in undertones while Nudge and Angel commented to each other on the interior decor.

And Fang, well, he just sat there quietly like he did looking so socially invisible and majestic at the same time. At first I'd thought his dark t-shirt, jeans, and semi-long, black hair had looked creepy, almost gothic. But now that I was used to it I thought it was a good look for him. Of course, anything he wore would probably make him look good. Wait, did I just say that?? What's wrong with me?!?

I turned to the glass coffee table beside me and smashed my head into it. The glass suddenly had a few thousand cracks in it courtesy of Madame Maximum's Room Decor Services.

Iggy and Gazzy stopped their discussion long enough to give me a weird look before resuming and Nudge and Angel looked the same way for a moment until they started complimenting my design.

Fang just looked at me and smirked.

Okay, so I was wrong. He didn't look good in a smirk.

A man walked into the room, preoccupied in his thoughts so that he didn't notice us until he was several meters through the doorway.

"Oh, hi," he blinked, obviously trying to figure out why six kids of varying ages and a dog were in his living room making themselves at home.

"We're friends of Cleo's," Nudge offered.

"And we're not a gang," Angel said, at which his face reddened a shade.

"Uh...no, of course not. Where is Cleo?"

"She's looking for her dad," Nudge told him.

"That would be me," he said, "Cleo!!" he called loudly.

We heard footsteps and Cleo came through the door from down the hall.

"Oh, there you are," she said, "My friends were wondering about Itex and I said that you did some stuff for them, so they were wondering if you could tell them a little more."

He blinked, "Uh...I suppose so. May I ask why you're interested?"

"School report," I said automatically, cutting off Cleo's uncertain response.

He nodded as if this were perfectly logical. Hey, we wouldn't know, we've never been to a learning facility. At least not one where _we_ learned anything. Mostly it was evil Whitecoats learning about _us_.

"I actually don't know much about them," Cleo's dad said, "But I'll tell you what I know."

"No, you won't," a deep voice said from behind him.

He spun as a tall, bald man stepped into the room. A piece of black glittered in his hand right before it flashed and a tremendous crash shook the room. I looked up, adrenaline seeping into me as my mind wondered Danger??

It was answered as Cleo's dad grasped at his chest and spun to the side, a silent gasp of pain on his face. He collapsed to the floor, blood just starting to soak through his shirt.

The bald man didn't bat an eye, "You come with me," he said to Cleo, "Your friends, too. They've seen too much."

Cleo stood frozen in place, shocked, looking at her dad on the floor. One glance and I knew he was already dead.

"Hey! I don't have all day! Hurry up or I might just shoot you, too!" he waved his gun in the air to make his point.

That unfroze Cleo, who walked slowly across the room, eyes never leaving her dad as his blood started to pool on the carpet. I gave a faint nod and the rest of the flock stood and walked toward the man as well. Their faces betrayed their shock and horror at the killing of the man they had heard talk just a moment before. They had seen death before, of course— we all had— but that didn't change the fact of what it was: death.

My subconscious performed a Flock check while I searched for a way out. Chair, too far away. Couch, close but not enough to stop a bullet.

_Fang._

Clock, it was close but it would leave my midsection exposed momentarily while I grabbed it from above the door, plus it wasn't armored enough for a bullet anyway.

_Fang._

What about Fang? I looked around. Where _was_ Fang?! He wasn't on the couch. He was there a minute ago. I scanned the room.

No Fang.

The bald guy gestured with his gun into the room from which he'd come and we shuffled through, Cleo reluctantly relinquishing her gaze from her dead dad.

Baldy's eyes glanced out the window before turning back to us. I followed his eyes' path out the window and saw a black van across on the next street over.

Black vans are never good.

"Out the back," he said, waving his gun toward the back door.

As I turned to do as he said a flicker of movement caught my eye.

I turned back to him, "Are you okay?"

"What're you talking about?" he growled.

"You don't look so good," I told him.

"I'm fine, but you won't be if you don't open that door and start walking," he sneered.

"No, really," I persisted, "You look like death. In fact, I think that's what you'll be in two seconds.

"If you don't—" was all he got out before Fang's roundhouse kick caught him in the back of the neck. There was a crack as his neck snapped and his windpipe collapsed. He hit the floor, unmoving.

"Nice one, Fang," I said as Iggy slapped him highfive.

Fang, my invisible ninja.

My moment of bliss was cut short by a small voice.

"Cleo??"

Cleo's eyes widened, "Kim?" she said, turning toward the doorway on the other side of the room where her sister stood.

Uh-oh.


	9. An Explosion

I decided to play it by ear.

"Hi, Kim!" I said cheerfully, "Cleo's told us all about you!"

"She has?" Kim raised an eyebrow, not sure whether to believe me or not.

Suspicious little thing. It kind of made me feel better to know that my paranoia was shared.

"Yep!" I replied, scanning Kim imperceptibly.

Semi-long blond hair that went a half-dozen centimeters past the shoulders, the front of which ended a centimeter or less above innocent yet suspicious eyes, sweet smile that managed to also portray her annoyance at Cleo that many siblings felt for each other (what can I say, most people haven't had to rely on their siblings to save their lives from evil maniacs bent on world domination). Stylish pink shirt with tight sleeves that went halfway down her forearms, V-shaped neckline with a level piece of white material underneath with a frilly edge, and the bottom of the shirt going a few centimeters below the waistline, expanding slightly as it neared the bottom, much like a bell. The front spelled out E.P.I.C. in swirly, purple letters that glittered in the few rays of sunlight that filtered in from outside. Dark blue jeans, also fairly tight, that were the perfect length, ending at her ankles, with a couple of mosaic flowers made from plastic jewels. Trendy open-topped purple shoes (the same shade as the E.P.I.C. on her shirt, I noticed) that fitted her feet fairly snugly. Her whole posture seemed relaxed, like the punks you see hanging around street corners and alleys, only she seemed to carry a confidence that punks didn't have. The confidence of popularity. She was about to lose _that_ real quick.

Jeb had trained me well. I took all this in in less than a second.

"Like," I continued without missing a beat, "You're stylish and artistic, you know what outfits would look just great, all while being original! You love the hardcore band E.P.I.C. And," I added, making a point of looking over her, "I can see that she was right! That outfit looks awesome!"

Kim seemed taken aback for once, and stared at me for a moment, scrutinizing, before accepting my motive as honest and turning to Cleo. Cleo had blushed crimson, probably at the awkwardness of Kim suddenly thinking she was a sweet sister. But Kim misread it as humility and smiled at her.

Nudge and Angel were grinning and mentally Oohing and Ahhing over the sisterly moment. Iggy and Gazzy, on the other hand, were giving me a strange look that wondered if I'd finally snapped and become a total girly girl.

Fang just smirked knowingly.

Kim looked satisfied, and it would have been a nice moment if she hadn't happened to glance past me to the body on the floor. Her eyes widened and her smile faded, turning to surprise and then horror.

"Wha??" she gasped, looking first a Cleo, then at me, then back to Cleo.

Cleo's face switched amazingly fast from bright red to pale. If the situation hadn't been so somber I would have laughed.

"Uh..." I coughed, "That's...um..."

"A stalker," Fang said coolly.

"Riiiiight," I agreed, "He snuck inside but Fang here," I motioned to Fang, "Knocked him on the head," I nodded convincingly.

Kim blinked, still staring at the body, "His neck looks crooked..."

"It does?" Iggy asked, "I wondered what that crack wa..."

"It's just a trick of the light," I interrupted.

"That's the most horrible thing I've ever seen!" Kim said in a disturbed voice.

"Yeah? Well, don't go into the living room," Nudge said helpfully.

I narrowed my eyes at her as Kim walked toward the door to the living room, naturally intent on seeing whatever was restricted.

"Actually," I said, moving in her way, "There's nothing in there."

"Then why can't I look?"

I pondered this for a moment, "Okay, so there is something in there. And you shouldn't see it."

"I want to," she said stubbornly.

"Not a good idea," Fang said, "Right, Cleo?"

We looked at Cleo, who stood zombie-like.

"Right, Cleo?"I prodded.

"Huh?? What?? Oh, of course! Definitely!" she said, still shaken.

"See?" I said, "Nothing to see in there. Now..."

"Well, well, well," a woman's cold voice said from the living room.

Before I could move, Kim darted around me and through the door.

I looked at Fang with exasperation as I hurried through the door behind Kim. He shrugged.

I turned and barely stopped short of hitting Kim, who was stopped dead in her tracks, staring at her dead father, the blood starting to pool around him, soaking into the carpet.

_Get out of there, Max._

I ignored my Voice.

Yeah, you heard me right, my _Voice_. What, you don't have one?

"Well," the woman's cold voice said again.

I looked up to see a middle-aged woman standing on the other side of the room, a cold look on her face that matched her voice.

"Mom!" Kim and Cleo said in unison.

They ran forward, beginning to let out all the tears they'd been holding in. They tried to pull their mother into an embrace, but she shrugged them off.

"I've touched you enough, filthy freaks," she muttered. Then, seemingly to herself, "And Don had it coming to him, too, sympathizing with the merchandise like that," she shook her head, "Pity, I liked working with him at the beginning, back when he knew where his loyalties lie."

She looked up, as if noticing that me and my flock where standing there for the first time.

"And you," she narrowed her eyes, "You'll be very sorry you came to see Cleo and Kim today."

"Why's that?" I asked, doing a very good impersonation of a scared Popular.

I could tell I was convincing from the muffled snickers coming from Iggy and Gazzy's direction.

"Because you've seen too much," Cleo's "mom" replied coolly, enjoying the knowledge she thought was her's exclusively.

"What do you mean?" I asked, carefully making my voice shake, "Someone just came in here and killed Mister--"

"That's not his name!!" she interrupted, a vein pulsing in her neck.

I cringed, as did Cleo and Kim. Only they were genuinely terrified.

_Max, get out. Now._

_Shut up, Voice, I'm on a roll here. I don't have time for your vague and sketchy wisdom._

"Well, whoever he was," I said, "We need to call 112!" I started toward the kitchen, from where we'd come. I hadn't seen a phone in there, but there was probably one somewhere.

"I don't think so," Pseudomom said, pulling out a gun.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Fang's eye twitch. The weapon was out in the open. Now we knew exactly where it was.

I widened my eyes, "What do you have a gun for??" I squeaked as Nudge and Kim whimpered convincingly.

"There will be a man here any moment to collect the merchandise. And you, since you happened to be here," she smiled arrogantly with a Nothing-Can-Stop-Me-Now look.

"Was he, by any chance, tall and bald?" I asked, "Because he shot himself in there," I pointed to the kitchen.

Pseudomom's eye twitched, momentarily uncertain.

"I think it was something Mister...well..._he_ said," gestured toward Cleo's dead "father".

"You're lying," but she didn't look quite as sure of herself.

"Max!" Gazzy hissed, tapping my shoulder.

"Not now!" I hissed back without changing my posture or facial expression.

"Move aside!" Pseudomom ordered, "Don't make me use this," she gestured to the gun.

"No, don't!" I said with alarm, "We'll move!" and skittered aside from the door, my flock following behind me.

Cleo and Kim sat frozen, but I narrowed my eyes at them slightly and they hurried over to join us.

Pseudomom walked stiffly toward the kitchen, finally disappearing through the doorway.

"Max!" Gazzy hissed again.

"What is it?!" I asked irritably.

"I smell combustibles! And it's not me!" he added before I could ask.

"And...?" I asked.

"They're about to combust!" he said, wide-eyed.

I jerked involuntarily. Gazzy knows these things.

"How bad?"

"Fifty meter radius if..."

"How long?" I interrupted, anxiety starting to flood my veins with adrenaline.

"Now," he whispered.

"Follow me!" I said, and, trying not to let my worry show, running toward the kitchen.

Inside, Pseudomom was standing over her fallen comrade.

"He wasn't shot," she said angrily, "He was attacke--"

"Yeah, I know," I said, quickly knocking the gun out of her hand and across the floor, "Sorry, no time to chat."

I scooped her up in my arms and ran outside I spread my wings and continued running until I lifted off the ground. I looked down at Pseudomom in my arms in allowed myself a small amount of satisfaction at the shocked look on her face. I looked over my shoulder and saw Gazzy, Nudge, and Angel lifting off. Fang scooped up Cleo and Iggy Kim and they were right behind the younger three. I flew over the house behind Cleo's and was above the street when the explosion went off.

I heard it first, a crashing boom so loud I didn't think I'd get through it with my hearing intact. Jeb had trained me never to show pain outwardly. It showed weakness and gave the other side the advantage. So I just tensed my muscles and waited for it to pass. A second before it did, however, the shock wave hit and I was thrown through the air at several times my normal flying speed, tumbling head over heels. Somehow I managed to hang on to Cleo and Kim's "mom" through it the chaos. Finally the extremely painful noise ended and I heard my flock yelling/screaming, depending on gender, from the pain.

It was the best sound I'd ever heard.

Then the shock wave came to a stop and I attempted to find the sky in the flying mass of bird- and fish-kids, one pseudomom, and a tangle of houses, streets, well manicured lawns, swimming pools, and a few dozen other things.

Say, I thought, look at that huge swimming pool down there.

Er...I mean...look at that _sky_ down there! I had started falling up.

Not good.

I untangled my wings and managed to right myself, straining my wing muscles as the air resistance slowed my descent, if somewhat painfully.

I looked around for my flock.

Angel and Gazzy had hung onto each other and had managed to stay upright most of the time. Fang was carrying a scared Cleo, whose face contrasted Fang's own, which suggested that he had been doing nothing but a leisurely stroll What? Dead bodies? Evil scientists? Exploding houses? Not him.

Nudge gave Iggy some directions and he pulled up as well, an equally scared Kim clinging desperately to his neck.

"Hey, guys!" Gazzy called, "There's some guy with a rifle on the ground! Uh-oh, he's pointing it...DUCK!!"

I immediately tucked in my wings and tried to make myself as small a target as possible.

Would we never be free of danger?

But even as I brought my head down toward my chest, my legs up in front of me, and my arms in as close as I could while holding an average-sized adult, I heard the crack of the gun and knew I was too late.

I felt a searing pain in my arm and gasped involuntarily from the pain. But the bullet kept going, its path leading it up through Pseudomom's jaw straight into her brain. Her face gaped silently before she collapsed in my arms.

Dead.

They could never leave possible witnesses, I thought bitterly.

"He...he's gone now," Gazzy said, sounding both weak and relieved.

We were over the ocean now, and taking one last look at the mislead woman in my arms, I relinquished my hold and let her fall toward the water several hundred yards below us.

"Max?!" Nudge said in surprise and horror as Cleo and Kim gasped, "Wha...?"

"She's gone, too," I said flatly.

It took a moment for that to sink in.

Then I heard Kim start to cry in Iggy's arms.

"She wasn't your mother," Fang said in his quiet voice, "It wasn't her fault. She didn't know what she was doing."

I could tell his words helped Cleo and Kim, although they were still going to have grief issues.

Then I decided. This was it. It was one thing for us, who had grown up in the School, knowing we were experiments. Knowing we were unwanted.

But letting these girls think that they had loving parents, friends, a normal life. My anger for the School and its Whitecoats that I had banished so long ago suddenly came flooding back. Before I had been able to do nothing against the School. I had been doing well to survive and help my flock do the same.

But now.

Now I could do something.

"Let's go," I said, venom in my voice, eyes narrowed.

"Where?" Fang asked from beside me, still holding Cleo.

I flapped my wings and soared forward, where the ocean spread out flat below me, going on past the horizon.

"Mako Island."


	10. A Perspective

Zane sat on the plush couch facing the expensive television mounted on the wall, the remote control in one hand. As he flipped through the channels light flashed across him and the soft carpet on the floor and the smooth, professional paint job on the walls and ceiling of the main room, revealing the kitchen furnishings on white tile behind a bar counter and stools. To the left of Zane two doors at points in the wall marked the location of the bedrooms of both him and his father, while slightly behind and to the right a bigger, solid-looking door guarded passage to the outside.

Zane remembered his old house that he had moved from a couple of days ago. He could walk out the front door and feel somewhat free in the open space of his large front yard of well-tended grass. But here "outside" meant a long hallway of other residences, like a hotel or even a lowly apartment, Zane thought bitterly. Here in urban Italy things weren't as open as in Australia, it would seem. His father had explained how it was actually an expensive business suite reserved exclusively for employees of the corporation and that Zane should feel honored to be here, but Zane didn't care how much it had cost. He missed the large yards, gardens, beaches, and ocean of Australia.

His father had even forbade him to go outside the building into the city! As if Zane couldn't look after himself. What had he done all those years in Australia when his father had been too involved in his business interests to look after his own son? Had he run away with girls or stolen or vandalized as so many other teens his age did?

No! He had made friends and invested time and money in worthy ventures! And what did he get for it? He was effectively grounded for an indefinite period of time! Zane tightened his mouth in anger at the unfairness of it all. After all this time and his father still didn't trust him!

Mr. Bennett claimed it was because of the dangers of urban life. It was nothing like Australia, he had told Zane, there were criminals and stalkers that roamed the streets, not like the streets of their old house where they had known everyone and honesty prevailed over lies. This was the world at its worst, his father had told him, so don't just go running around wherever you feel like until I make some connections and we get familiar with the place a little more.

Unfortunately, no "running around wherever you feel like" meant not going anywhere at all. Not that Mr. Bennett had this restriction. In fact, he was rarely _in_.

Zane supposed his father was right. He didn't know what kinds of things there were in the big city, much less in a different country. He felt the anger at his father gradually ebb away. No, he wasn't angry at his father, he just wished he could go out! At least he'd have to go out for school, right? Unless his father hired a private tutor to come to the suite. And Zane desperately hoped that this wasn't the case.

He hadn't even seen the place they'd gone too or the city they were in. He had been carrying his luggage and preparing to get in the plane, and the next thing he knew he was here in the main room of the suite, lying on the couch with a splitting headache, with his father over him with a concerned look on his face. It soon faded after being assured that Zane was quite alright, returning his face to its normal businessman expression. Apparently, his father had explained, Zane had gotten on the plane and they had made the flight. They had boarded the Italian equivalent of a taxi upon arrival and had arrived at the building of business suites, but Zane had tripped on the curb and hit his head on a rock, knocking him out cold. His father and a staff member at the building had carried him up along with the luggage, and a few minutes later Zane had revived, remembering nothing after seeing the plane, about to board it. At first he was slightly skeptical, but the bruise and horrible headache proved that he had indeed suffered a short-term memory loss from the blow. Plus, his father had never lied to him. He hadn't always cared about Zane, but Mr. Bennett was an honest man. He and Zane had never outright lied to each other.

Zane's eyes staring at the television screen as he continued to flip through the channels listlessly. He sighed. It was no use going over it again and again. It wasn't going to change, at least not just by thinking about it. Normally he would talk to Nate or Rikki about his frustrations and they would agree about the injustice of the situation or point out how self-centered he was being about the whole thing. And he would feel better just having talked about it, even if it took a few days after getting over the comment about self-centeredness. Even Lewis understood more than these business morons of his fathers would if he had tried to talk to any of them.

Zane laughed bitterly to himself. It was a sad, sad day when he found himself missing Lewis' friendship.

But he did miss his old friends. Mostly Nate and Rikki. If he was back home in Australia he would have been coasting the sea waters with Nate in his little boat or hanging out with him at the Juicenet Cafe. Or maybe he would have been hanging out with Rikki, getting drinks at the Juicenet Cafe or just talking on the beach.

He wondered where Rikki was now...

* * *

Rikki lie on the cold floor inside a small cage only a meter or two square and about a meter tall.

"Rikki!!"

Rikki's body shuddered and she moaned loudly.

"Rikki, are you okay?!?" Emma's terrified voice sliced through her peaceful unconsciousness.

Rikki tried to form words but they came out as another groan as the pain hit her. She hurt terribly everywhere from the pain they had inflicted to test her. Her muscles still ached from being pushed beyond their limit.

"Rikki?!?"

"I'm...okay," she barely managed to force out, her voice a whisper, teeth gritted together.

She slowly shut out the pain, feeling a grim appreciation for her tough past that allowed her to do this. She forced herself to gradually sit up as much as she could in the small cage as her realization of the pain slowly ebbed away.

"Rikki!" Lewis gasped as caught sight of her, "They've hurt you!" he cried out in anger, grasping the bars of his own cage so hard his arms shook, his facing pressing against the cold metal, "They'll be sorry they ever messed with _my_ friend! I'll...I'll..." he sputtered as he tried to conceive a punishment horrible enough.

"Lewis," Rikki said, voice gaining strength as her mind began to build mental walls against the pain. Even so, her injuries were obvious to the others and she still felt stiff, along with the vague feeling that used to be unendurable pain, "You're stuck in here as much as we are. Escape first, revenge later, eh?" she attempted a small smile.

He bit his lip, his manliness being suppressed by logic as his scientist side took over. He sighed, "Yeah, okay. Escape first."

Emma hadn't turned her face from Rikki. She was usually the sensible one, but she didn't look very composed right now. Although, Rikki reminded herself, most people didn't have to endure what she was enduring right now. Rikki noticed, however, that her face also was closing up slightly against the obvious anguish she was feeling as some subconscious part of her mind realized that panic wasn't going to help anything.

"I'm okay," Rikki smiled as much as her swollen eye and various cuts and bruises enabled her to. Her clothes were torn from the violent handling as well.

Emma looked visibly relieved at Rikki's display of spirit, even though the marks on her face and body still disturbed her greatly.

Having significantly relieved her friends' stress, Rikki leaned back on the wall of her cage and hugged her legs up to her chest. She rested her head on her knees and closed her eyes, exhausted. It had been worse than she had let on, but she didn't want to speak of it. She didn't even want to remember it. She just wanted to rest...

Rikki awoke with a slight start as the door to the room where they were being held opened. A burst of fear suddenly flared up.

They were back!

She suppressed it stubbornly, forcing herself to be calm. If they were here for her again she would need every bit of her endurance to make it through whatever torture they had prepared for her this time. She tightened her lips grimly. They wouldn't break her.

But the white-clad legs strode past her cage and Rikki felt a guilty wave of relief wash over her as she realized that it was not her to be tested this time. But her relief was quickly stopped in its tracks as she realized with horror that now it was Emma's turn. Lewis sat still in his cage, eyes wide, too stunned by all this to react to the fact that they were taking Emma and he was powerless to stop them. Rikki tried to put up a better front for her. She smiled encouragingly and made a fist to signify being strong as Emma passed her cage, looking unsure and scared. Emma tried to smile back, but it didn't make it to any other part of her face.

It was only once the door shut solidly and Rikki knew that Emma was gone that she lie down on the floor and cried violently for her dear friend.

* * *

The Eraser walked to the edge of the unnaturally clear pool of water that rested directly under the volcano's opening and dropped silently into it, just as he had practiced in training. He took a calm, measured breath and felt his body take the oxygen for use, funneling the useless water to various points throughout his body where it would be expelled noiselessly. Not quite so painlessly, but then he was trained to endure immense pain. This was nothing in comparison to the tests they'd run on him in training to get him fit for combat.

He breathed in again and moved his strong arms and legs through the water, pushing him forward into the underwater tunnel that led from the pool into the open ocean. He calmed himself and casually searched the cave walls, then the rock ceiling, then the sandy ocean floor, eventually looking in every direction around him. His specially created eyes missed nothing. He swam out through the opening and into the ocean, eyes flitting this way and that until he was satisfied that nothing was out of place.

Nothing was ever out of place.

Almost without meaning to, he remembered that day several months ago. It seemed like so much longer. He had been in hunting training at the time. He had taken down an adult chimpanzee. He had been proud. This had been his first successful kill. He had looked up to see if he had, for once, left a good impression on the scientist watching.

He had not.

He had never quite understood what he had done wrong, and that had just enraged the scientist further.

So now he was assigned to guard duty. He had been ever since that day. He supposed he should be grateful that they hadn't killed him outright. They had had the right, hadn't they? They still did. They were his creators, after all.

But this job of monotonous guarding was starting to get to him. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth again and again, all day and half the night.

Of course, it wouldn't have been so bad if something had happened every once in a while. But, of course, the scientists at Itex were too smart for that. Nothing worth guarding against would even find out where they had hidden, much less make it anywhere near it.

He sighed, an expression he had picked up from one of the scientists, and turned to swim back through the passageway toward the pool.

He felt a disturbance in the water. Shark, he thought glumly, turning to be sure. He was just inside the tunnel, a small part of him still outside in the sunlit ocean. He didn't see anything. No matter. After all this research he was surprised to find that a great many fish still had better camouflage than he and his fellow Erasers did.

He felt a disturbance of water on his other side, inside the passageway. Strange, the larger ones didn't usually venture inside there. But then again, his senses were developed enough to catch the odd smaller fish's movement under the right circumstances.

Still, it made him uneasy. He pulled a little communicator from a pocket in the cloth the scientists insisted he wore around his groin. He would alert the others of the passing fish. Not that they would care, nor would he, but it was better for everyone to do it by the book.

He felt a violent disturbance behind him again, toward the open ocean. He turned quickly, hoping to catch a glimpse at what large fish was in the vicinity.

What he saw was no fish. It was a human girl.

With wings.

His training took over as he moved one hand to press the alarm button and the other into a right hook.

He never got a chance to do either.

The next thing he knew he was sailing backwards with a surprising amount of force for a human, even one with wings, and a terrible pain in his jaw. He tried to ignore the pain, as he'd been trained, but he found it to be much more difficult in an actual attack. He was surprised to even be under attack! He turned, looking for her, and saw a flick of movement to his left. He turned and saw her in time to be dealt a vicious kick to the kidneys. He gasped, sucking in water, as lights exploded in his eyes. His body ripped the oxygen from the inhaled water before practically throwing it out through the various pores in his body. The pain in his kidneys was tremendous and he kept sucking in lungful after lungful of water.

His systems weren't prepared for this. They weren't made for this. The pain as the water was expelled increased. He could feel his body slow its processes, and he knew that his time was up. He turned to attack this girl who had dared to cause him this pain, but his motions felt strangely slow and sluggish. She appeared in front of him, brown hair flowing around her. She seemed perfectly calm.

The button, he remembered, he had to push the button and alert the others. He looked to his left hand where the device sat. But before he could make his finger respond a foot lashed out and the device floated out of his hand toward the sand-covered floor. He turned back toward the girl in time to see her arm flash out.

Then all went black.


	11. A Visit

"Emma," the musical voice drifted through the blackness, sounding like it was flowing through water to her ears, "Emma," it repeated.

Emma tried to find the voice, but it was too dark to see anything.

Emma," the musical voice said again.

"Wha...who are you?" Emma asked.

"I'm Mrs. Chatham, dear."

Emma's eyes flew open and she bolted upright at the reference to the friendly elderly woman and friend that had helped them in the past. She immediately regretted her sudden movement, however, as the immense pain the scientists had inflicted on her came rushing back, staggering her under its weight. She moaned and closed her eyes, sinking down into a sitting position, resting her head against the back of the crate.

After a few minutes the pain gradually faded back to a bearable level and she was able to reopen her eyes. Mrs. Chatham's face was just outside the crate, a sad smile on her face.

"Emma," Mrs. Chatham said softly.

"Mrs. Chatham?" Emma croaked.

It hurt dreadfully to talk, but then it hurt to do nearly anything after what they'd done to her. The horrific images filled Emma's mind again as she remembered and she moaned again.

"Dear Lord," Mrs. Chatham murmured, her smile faltering for a moment, "What have they done to you?"

That woke Emma up the rest of the way.

"What did who do?" she forced the words from her lips, "Who are they?"

Mrs. Chatham thought a moment before answering, "We work for Itex, Emma," she said, "And--"

"'We'?!?" Rikki asked in a venomous voice from a couple yards away, just out of sight, in her own crate, "You're one of _them_?!"

Mrs. Chatham sighed, "I can explain, girls," she said, looking at Emma with a pleading look.

Emma just looked at her, trying to appear indifferent but looking more curious than anything else.

After a moment without response Mrs. Chatham continued, her eyes seeming to focus on something in the distance that no one else could see; remembering, "Before I say anything, girls, I want you to know that I'm sorry."  
"For what?" Rikki asked in a guarded voice.

Mrs. Chatham acted as though she hadn't heard her, "The people in this facility are scientists," she said.

Emma's eyes widened, despite the dull ache from her swollen right eye, "Scientists?" she whispered, "They want to..._study_ us?"

Mrs. Chatham smiled that sad smile again, eyes refocusing on Emma's crate and moving down Emma's bruised face to her eyes, "No, dear," she said, "At least, not like the others. These people already know what you are."

Emma jolted slightly as Mrs. Chatham said it, although she had guessed as much herself.

"How did they find out?" Rikki's steel voice asked with obvious implications.

"You really don't know, do you?" Mrs. Chatham asked, "No, of course not. Itex was always very careful," she sighed, that faraway look in her eyes again, "No, dear girls, they already know what you are; they have for a long time," she looked back down at Emma, "Because, you see, they created you."

* * *

The Eraser walked stiffly down the hallway inside the facility, eyes roaming for intruders. He never let his guard down. He couldn't, nor did he want to. Itex said that there could be intruders, and Itex was usually right. His creators had put the safety of this important facility in him and his fellow Erasers, and he intended to make sure that their trust was not misplaced. He reached the end of the hallway and jogged easily down the stairs to the floor below, where another Eraser jumped clumsily to attention as he saw him come down, relaxing as he realized who that it was only another Eraser, not an important scientist. The idiot. A clumsy dog could walk right past him and he'd never even realize it was there.

"Anything?" he asked, even though he knew the answer.

"No, nothing," the other Eraser said in a bored voice.

"Good," he replied, "Carry on," he nodded toward the staircase and the other Eraser headed gratefully down to a lower level, glad to have his shift over for a few hours. The Eraser's eyes followed his colleague until he was out of sight.

Idiot indeed.

He stood in a relaxed yet alert posture, eyes continually scanning the hallway's white walls for movement while his nose searched through the antiseptic smell for the odors that preceded intruders and ears searched for the noises that betrayed them. Nothing was out of place. He had actually come to enjoy the smell of antiseptic in the halls as the smell of home. There were other Itex labs, certainly, but they all smelled like this. He breathed in deeply and caught the rich, yet sour smell.

He suddenly heard footsteps on the stairs and mentally cursed himself for allowing himself to be so caught up in his thoughts. It was probably some scientists. He stood at attention, staring straight ahead; somehow the scientists were offended when an Eraser would stare at them.

"Hey! You!" a female voice barked loudly, causing him to flinch.

After a moment of no reply he turned his eyes to the side without moving any of his body. He nearly started at what he saw. There were five girls and two boys all coming down the stairs toward him. The oldest girl was in her mid teens by normal standards and the others were younger than that by varying degrees down to the youngest, who couldn't be more than seven, the Eraser reckoned.

One of the oldest girls was looking at him, apparently waiting for him to answer her previous question.

"Yes, Doctor?" the Eraser hoped he was not wrong in his assumption that this was another of the scientists. He had never seen her before, but if he accidentally called her by something besides her title she would be angry.

They were always angry.

But he must have gotten it right, because she took no notice and kept right on talking. He breathed a mental sigh of relief.

"Which way to the prisoners?" she asked briskly, "We need to administer some more tests,"

The Eraser tried to notice their appearances for later memory, but it was all he could do to answer her questions. The scientists rarely talked to the Erasers.

"Right down this hallway," he said, gesturing down the hallway away from the stairs, "Holding room 114B,"

"Thank you," she nodded once and walked with purpose down the hallway away from him.

He allowed himself a slight smile. These people were not supposed to be here. First, a doctor would know precisely where the prisoners were being held without having to ask a lowly Eraser. Second, she would not have given a reason for her inquiry; he would have been expected to obey because he was here to serve Itex. Third, she would not have thanked him.

His discipline had finally paid off.

He slowly and silently brought his hands from his sides and took his security handheld in one hand and his stun gun in the other. He pushed a button on the handheld while simultaneously raising the stun gun, aiming for the back of the older girl who had addressed him. She was probably the most important one.

He heard a disturbance of air behind him, but before he could react a foot connected with the side of his head, throwing him back against the wall and knocking the wind out of him. He recovered quickly and barely ducked under right hook flying toward him.

He turned and saw his attacker for the first time. It was only a young boy, about the age of the girl who had addressed him, with fairly long, dark hair that nearly covered his eyes.

The boy was slightly off-balance after the ducked punch and the Eraser saw his opening. He lunged forward and punched the boy in the jaw, sending him back into the wall and leaving him momentarily stunned. He picked up his stun gun from the floor where he'd dropped it a minute ago and raised it, aiming for the boy's chest. Suddenly a foot shot out and hit his wrist, snapping it to the side and throwing the stun gun clear.

He had forgotten about the others!

Instinct took over and he threw himself backward as a second kick flew harmlessly over him. He rolled to his feet and saw the older girl as she leapt toward him with a roundhouse kick. He blocked it with his arm and grabbed it, twisting the girl off balance and to the ground, body horizontal, as her face hit the wall vertically at a weird angle with a satisfying sound of smashing body tissue.

He used the advantage to quickly survey the area. The girl would be out of the fight for a few minutes. The boy was recovering more quickly than he had anticipated; he was already staggering to his feet. The other four girls and two boys were standing five meters away from him, not an immediate issue.

"Fang! Catch!" the smaller boy called, lobbing something through the air.

The Eraser reached out and easily snatched it out of the air before it could get to the older boy, the one called Fang.

"Down!!" the tall boy beside the smaller one yelled.

The Eraser spun to the one called Fang, expecting an assault, but instead he was collapsed on the floor, hands over his head.

Hands over his head?

The Eraser had time for a short moment of panic as he looked at the small object in his hand before it detonated.

There was a long moment of intolerable pain! His face burned, one arm burned— he couldn't feel the other one! His legs burned! His chest burned!

Then the world tilted and he was suddenly staring at the white ceiling of the hallway. The room faded and then everything went black.


	12. A Revelation

"They...created us?" Emma asked uncertainly.

"Yes," Mrs. Chatham said it as if each word she spoke required great effort.

"What do you mean?" Lewis demanded.

Mrs. Chatham sighed, "A little more than fifteen years ago, Itex pooled funds into research to learn more about genetic engineering; specifically, hybrids."

"What?" Rikki asked flatly.

"She means that they tried to change the genetic capabilities of a member of a given species," Lewis explained thoughtfully, "By inserting genetic coding from another species into another so as to..."

"SPEAK ENGLISH!!!" Rikki screamed.

There was a moment of silence before Lewis said sheepishly, "They take part of one species and put it in another species, resulting in an organism that has similarities to both."

"Well, that resembled English," Rikki muttered.

"So we're a...hybrid??" Emma said, still slightly confused.

"Yes," Mrs. Chatham said, "Part human, part fish."

"You lied," Rikki said accusingly.

Mrs. Chatham lowered her head and spoke in a soft voice, "I did. I'm so sorry, girls, Lewis. I was hired by Itex years ago. By the time I realized the horrific things they were doing it was too late to get out."

"So you betrayed us to save your own neck," Lewis said, voice deceptively calm.

Mrs. Chatham didn't say anything.

"What about all of the proof?" Emma asked, "We can turn into mermaids!"

"It's in your genes," Mrs. Chatham replied simply.

"No magic?" Emma asked.

"No magic."

"What about the lockets?" Rikki asked, voice low from restrained emotions.

"Created as proof of my story," Mrs. Chatham said, her voice faltering.

No one said anything as they took in this startling revelation.

Suddenly a blaring alarm seemed to come from everywhere at once, hurting Emma's ears.

"They are coming," Mrs. Chatham said softly.

"Who?" Lewis demanded, "The scientists??"

Emma felt a sudden dread at the mention of the evil people, remembering the agonizing things they had done to her.

"No," Mrs. Chatham said softly, "Not yet."

"_Who's_ coming?!?" Rikki's voice portrayed the fear and dread the Emma felt.

Mrs. Chatham's face looked more characteristically serene than before, "The others are coming."

Then the heavy metal door, leading from the hallway to this room where they were locked up in dog crates, clicked as it moved open a dozen centimetres, then opened further to reveal several people standing outside.

* * *

I tensed, ready for action, as the heavy door rotated smoothly open. There were rows of dog cages and some old lady who didn't look very scary. But looks can be deceiving. I moved in slowly, alert, with Fang and Iggy flanking me. There didn't seem to be any immediate threat but, before I had finished surveying the area, Cleo gasped and ran past me before I could stop her.

"Lewis! Emma! Rikki!" she cried, emotions threatening to loose themselves again as she ran forward to her friends, who were trapped in several of the dog cages, "What happened??"

Kim's eyes were so wide I wondered if her eyeballs were going to pop out of her head.

"Oh, Mrs. Chatham!" Cleo had turned to the old lady and was sobbing into her shoulder.

She was looking for comfort from a Whitecoat??

And _receiving_ it?!?

I didn't have any idea what was happening with this unstereotypical development, but I didn't have time to find out now.

"Iggy, get them out of those dog cages!" I ordered.

He nodded and produced his oh-so-magical lock-picking set.

"Fang, guard the door. Gazzy, standby Iggy in case he needs help! Nudge and Angel, watch the Whitecoat!" my flock moved into their positions, leaving only Kim and Total standing beside me, seemingly small and insignificant amidst the chaos around them.

"What about me?" Total whined.

"Oh, you can...uh...watch the door with Fang, I guess," I told him.

He trotted over to Fang.

"You...um...Kim," I said, remembering how she wasn't used to responding instantaneously to orders from me, "Just stick close to me," I made a small smile that looked more like a grimace and turned back to the dog cages.

Iggy had gotten the first dog cage out and the boy....Lewis...was crawling out. Apparently the initial shock had faded, because now his eyes were blazing with fury.

I've always wanted to say that, "blazing with fury".

"When I get my hands on those scientists who hurt Emma and Rikki I'm gonna—!" he growled.

"That's great, loyalty to your friends and all that," I interrupted him, "But right now we need to leave."

"Leave?!?" he said loudly, "After what they did to them?!? Why, I ought to..."

"Yes, leave!" I said, starting to get annoyed. What was it with men?

There was suddenly some loud and repeated pounding from the ceiling.

"W-what's that?" Lewis said, adrenaline-powered bravery faltering.

"That would be the reinforcements." I said pointedly.

He chuckled nervously, "M-maybe we should...leave."

"Fabulous idea."

"They're gonna be here pretty soon," Fang warned from the doorway.

"Right," I said, "Iggy, how you coming?"

"Almost got it!" he said through gritted teeth, working on the third and last cage, then added, "Pass the thin one! No, the other thin one, the one with the screwy end! Yeah, that one!"

"What? Oh, never mind," I said as Gazzy handed Iggy another tool.

"They're almost to the stairs," Fang said a moment later.

"Iggy!"

"Almost!" he said in exasperation.

"Good! Everybody by the door, but stay out of sight!" I ordered, keeping an eye on Old Lady Whitecoat as Angel and Nudge scurried past to the door.

"Cleo! Lewis! Emma!" I motioned for them to go to the door also.

Cleo hesitated, but Old Lady Whitecoat told her softly, "Go," and she reluctantly moved toward the door with Lewis.

"Got it!!" Iggy exclaimed and Gazzy whooped and pumped his fist.

"Alright! Go, go!!" I shoved them and Rikki at the doorway where everyone was huddled.

I looked at Fang, and as if reading my mind he said, "They're on the stairs," he nodded toward the way we had come.

I thought about hiding before I realized that we had left the dead Eraser sentry in plain sight! I was mentally pummeling myself before I realized wryly that, thanks to Gazzy's grenade, we wouldn't have been able to clean up the Eraser very well without a broom and a bottle stain-remover.

"Run!" I said, pointing in the opposite direction of the threat.

Fang nodded once and was out the door before you could say...well, I won't tell you what I was thinking.

"Go, go, go!" I pushed them out the door and was about to run out too when I saw Lewis staring back at the Whitecoat with a sad, yet bitter and vengeful look in his eye.

"Go, Lewis," she said so softly it was almost a whisper, "I'm not the evil person you think I am. Go!" she repeated a little more loudly.

He finally turned and allowed me to push him out the door and into an all-out run as we tried to catch up with the others, who were running farther down the hall ahead of us.

* * *

Zane dropped the television remote on the coffee table, where it set with a clatter. He couldn't stand the isolation any longer! He had to get out! He jumped to his feet and practically ran to the front door of their dwelling. He had to get some fresh air! Just a couple of breaths! He didn't care if his father had said to remain inside, he just couldn't take it another minute!

He opened the door and took precisely two steps before he froze.

* * *

Suddenly a lab door opened ahead of us and an Eraser ran out! He stopped, as if confused, and I prepared to take full advantage.

"Zane?!" Lewis exclaimed in disbelief from behind me.

There went the element of surprise.

The Eraser turned and looked at Lewis in shock. Not the Oh-Snap-The-Prisoner-Has-Escaped shock, but the What-Is-This-Guy-Doing-Here shock.

"Lewis??" he asked with incredulity, blinking in confusion.

"What are you doing here?!" Lewis asked more guardedly.

"My dad got a job here," Zane explained, although it looked more like he was the one who needed things explained to him.

"For Itex, underneath Mako Island?" Lewis asked in a doubtful voice.

Zane's expression got even more confused, "Mako Island? No, I'm in Italy."

"No, you're underneath Mako Island," Lewis said matter-of-factly.

"No," Zane said, "I'm in—"

"You _are_ under Mako Island," I interrupted him, "And sorry but no time to chat, we have an escape to finish."

Lewis didn't look like he was as interested in saving his skin as he was talking things out with Zane, so I grabbed him by the wrist and started to drag him past Zane, further down the hallway.

But when I turned back toward our escape route I saw Fang, the flock, and the mermaids running back toward us. The reason for this sudden change is plans was behind them in the form of bloodthirsty Erasers— the real thing this time— running down the hallway behind them.

"Change in plans," I told Lewis, turning and starting to run down the hallway in the other direction.

Zane was still standing where we had left him with a priceless expression of shock on his face.

Too bad I hadn't brought a camera.

He was staring at the Erasers like he'd never seen human-wolf hybrids bent on murdering him and doing unthinkable things with him afterwards (or perhaps before). He obviously wasn't working for Itex, or at least not in the let's-mutate-things-and-track-down-Max department.

I sighed. Now we would have to get him out of here too.

This task was suddenly made infinitely more difficult as Erasers began coming down from the stairs into the hallway toward us.

We were trapped.

I stopped about midway beside Zane and held up my hand to halt the flock, who soon stopped (with mermaids in tow) behind me. No words were needed. We had been in situations like this dozens of times. Each member of the flock knew what had to be done. We would either fight out way out or die trying. In the unlikely event that a third option presented itself, we might choose that. But it was stupid to set our hopes on that unlikely possibility, and my flock knew it as well as I.

Zane, on the other hand, chose option four. He raised both hands and said loudly, "Okay, we surrender!"

The moron had seen waaaayy too much television.

Surprise, surprise, the Erasers didn't even consider his humble (and idiotic) pleas for mercy for half a second, continuing to charge at us with bloodlust in their eyes.

"STOP!!!" the voice carried down the hallway.

The Erasers stopped, not more than ten feet from us. They didn't want to— they wanted to rip out our throats— but they knew that voice and respected it.

Or feared it.

Or both.

The hallway packed with Erasers parted to allow the speaker through. He walked calmly; confident, but not cocky. He walked down the hallway toward us from the direction of the stairs.

The growling and snarling of nearby Erasers stopped as he came near. He passed through the last of the Erasers and stood before us in the only open area of the hallway.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Zane's eyes slowly widen even further in shock before narrowing in anger. I was surprised that anyone could be as angry as I was at this man.

Then he spat out one spiteful word, "Dad."

My face remained neutral, but I poured all of the bitterness I was feeling into one word as I addressed the man, "Jeb."


End file.
